Sleepless Nights
by BeautifulInversion
Summary: Sonny is graced with the presence of someone who makes him happy. They reflect on two sleepless nights, while parenting their daughters. Disclaimer: Not mine, but I love 'em.


Sonny Corinthos stalked back and forth straightening pillows, sipping on a glass of water he'd poured at the small bar, looking out the window, and in his mind he was dreaming of all the various ways this meeting could go. He'd been that way--nervous, concerned, anticipating, expecting--he wasn't quite sure what he expected, since the pilot called and let him they had landed, Sonny had calculated the time it should take the limo to get the two of them from the airport to the villa he had recently purchased not too far from his sugar plantation.

He turned his back to the room and looked through the glass of the sliding-glass doors that gave way to a tremendous porch that led out onto white sand and an ocean that at that time of night looked almost black, accept for the sparkle lent by the moonlight. He slid the right pane open slightly to hear the rustling of the waves and was startled to hear by the echo he heard back, the slamming of the door leading into the villa and the arrival of the two people he had been waiting for.

She stood in the doorway, lit only by the soft bulb of the lamp he'd turned on in the sitting room and the glow of the moon from the windows. Her hair was tousled and wavy. It was as if she had let it dry on its own which he knew was not because she had been relaxed and giving into fatigue or even because she appreciated the beauty of its soft, natural, and free-flowing state but most likely because she was drawn from her focus, doing several things at once and that the tresses had dried before she had, had time to notice. She was wearing a deep burgundy-colored nightgown that hit at her ankles and though the bodice was cut tastefully low, there was a sheer lace that stopped close to her neck. It drew out the golden tones in her skin, yet the ultimate display of that was impeded because she had thrown on a jean jacket over the seductive sheath and was caring her sandals by the straps though he was certain she hadn't crossed an inch of sand from the car to his door. She pulled those ever-slipping glasses from her face.

"Ms. Davis," Johnny announced, stepping back into the shadows of the corner in the living room. Corinthos looked up at her a smug expression on his face; he was attempting to fight away a grin.

"I'm surprised you came," he voiced a little too confidently.

Pulling her lip beneath her teeth and releasing it before speaking, she told him, "No, you're not." His dimples showed through and he did nothing to hide the pleasure in his smile.

"No, I'm not."

"So, I'm up late working on a very important case, snacking on a little popcorn, sipping very strong, grainy coffee and you call me. 'I'm sending my plane. Get on it.' And you're not surprised that I, Alexis Davis, who barely tolerates you, who isn't spontaneous in the least bit, and who hates to be out of control boarded your tiny plane at 1:00 in the morning. Why is that? Really, why?"

"Kristina needed you." He answered sitting on the couch he had been standing in front of, resting his leg on his knee and leaning comfortably back. Not exactly battle mode. She was not pleased, his confidence frustrating her greatly.

"The first time I let you take her on a vacation by yourself, well you and the people who work for you. What--what is it? A broken bone, severe sunburn--be, because you or the 500 hundred people who perform on your command can't put sunscreen on a 3 year-old . . .umm, tummy-ache from all the ice-cream you've given her?"

He stood up and walked toward the window, his back to her and barely above a whisper he said, "Breathe."

She heard him, though she didn't take a deep breath, neither did she give any reaction to what he'd said.

"What is wrong with our daughter, Sonny?"

"She can't sleep."

"You fueled your plane and brought me to the Caribbean because OUR daughter couldn't go to sleep." She couldn't help thinking what a sweet gesture it really had been, but she was not going to let the familiar tick-tock play between them end just yet. "She can't sleep," she said forcefully taking a few steps closer to his back. "So what you're saying to me is that either you put some scotch in her sippy-cup and told her to drink up or you slipped on her floaties and tossed her in the pool, 'Go on Kristina swim some laps.' " He turned around, standing a couple feet in front of her.

"I asked Johnny to escort Kristina's mother to the island, not Natasha Cassadine--princess of the ever-destructive vampire family. Johnny take her back." He said raising his voice.

"Sorry, sir. Can't." His most trusted bodyguard and friend responded simply. It was Alexis' turn to act smug.

His gaze shifted back to his former lawyer. "No, Lex, I didn't give our three-year-old scotch. . .she, she likes a little rum in her milk like her momma." He chuckled inwardly at her expression, "Nor would I put her in the water when she happens to be afraid of it." She softened, slightly and sat down in the chair opposite him.

"My baby is scared of the water? Hhh . . .how when we both love to swim in the ocean so much?" She asked, with the small bit of naivete she was privy to at times, sweet vulnerability.

"I'm not Harvard-bred or anything, but I don't think it's genetic. She's just got to get used to it. She's alright if I hold her."

"She couldn't sleep. Did she have a nightmare? What was it about? Did you ask her?"

"Uh-Lex-Is, maybe I should have worded that statement a little differently." He started.

"You mean like, I just wanted to pull you away from your work?" She asked him playfully.

"I did get you away and you . . . you don't look so sad about it." He answered pointing his finger at her. He bent down next to the chair she was in, taking the shoes from her hand and her glasses away sitting them to the side.

"Hey, I was using those glasses to point emphatically." She said, in what he would never call a whine.

"I know it and it was sexy as hell. What I meant is she WON'T go to sleep."

"Sonny, surely, if you used to keep big thugs in line and an entire "territory" she said quoting with her fingers, "going, you can make a little girl go to sleep at her bedtime--Without my help."

"Alleged territory," he said, she laughing lightly in response. "Kristina scraped her knee, playing this afternoon and she told me--with much authority--that she cannot go to sleep until mommy kisses it and sings the special 'boo-boo' song. She won't let me near the place on her leg."

She leaned over kissing his cheek sweetly, then resting her forehead against his. "I love you. You're such a great daddy."

He nodded thankfully, dimples full-force. "Where's the little one?" He asked, kissing the finger that held her wedding ring . . .the unique, antique band that he'd bought her in Puerto Rico.

"Oh, gosh. Johnny still has her. "Would you?"

"Absolutely. Go see Kris. She's coloring in her room."

2/2

Sonny leaned against the doorway of the master bedroom in the elaborate beach house. Wearing only a pair of navy blue pajama pants, he stood cuddling his tiny, younger daughter to his chest, his brother's little girl, that became his own. She'd stolen part of his heart. He saw the baby's mother walking toward him from their little girl's room. As she neared he could tell by the puffiness in her face and the red of her big brown eyes that she'd been crying. She wiped at her eyes, trying to hide the emotion she always fought. Daring the tears to defy, to fall. . .but she could not hide anything from him. He couldn't remember the day, but it seemed now that he'd always had the ability to read her.

Sonny had never seen the woman he loved cry as much or as often as he had in the months surrounding her separation from his brother Ric Lansing, his death, and the guilt it had caused to hover over her like a cloud. The furry and despair he felt every time he was brought back to that night when he found her screaming over the lifeless form of a brother he had never really taken enough time to know. She blamed herself, God how he had pleaded over and over with her to let the blame stay with the woman it truly belonged to, Helena Cassadine.

As if she had not tortured his cherished wife enough as a child, even as an adult, she just kept coming back for more. It was Stefan's birthday. How he'd been able to keep that date in his head he couldn't ever really know, only his immense love for the incredible woman who had shown him who he really was inside could have willed it to stay. Sonny had invited a very pregnant Alexis and their daughter Kristina for dinner and Ric had shown up to say goodbye before he left to go back to Manhattan. The two had gone outside to talk and he'd taken Kristina in his arms, sitting with her on the couch and tried to pay attention to Beauty and the Beast, one of Kristina's favorite movies. It wasn't long after that he heard Alexis' shrill scream. Handing their little girl to Johnny who'd bolted inside to get him; He rushed outside.

Ric was lying there on his sidewalk and she was clinging to him. It took him a minute to determine if she was alright physically. She'd had his blood all over her. Sonny pried her away from Ric's body, she was hysterical and he'd held her for what seemed like hours before she spoke. "Helena." She whispered through a sob as the paramedics and police arrived. "It should have been me."

He shook his head trying to rid it of the memory he knew would never leave either of them and sought to focus on the moment, with her walking toward him in their beautiful home by the beach. Helena had come after Alexis behind the guise of the money she'd "stolen" from the Cassadine bank accounts, and Ric seeing Helena's hand pulling back the trigger had jumped in front of Alexis saving her and their unborn child, a baby girl.

"Lex, baby, are you okay?" She nodded walking past him and into their bedroom as he followed. She sat down in the glider next to the bed and held her face in her hands, before looking back up. "You sure?"

"Is Corinn asleep?" She asked him, skirting the pain he could see briefly turn at the mention of the two month old. He would let it go momentarily.

"No," he said, kissing the softness of tiny forming curls, blonde curls. "She's fighting really hard to stay awake," he told her turning so she could see the little one's face. Those blue eyes curiously checking out the room she was in. He adjusted her so that she was cradled in his arms.

"It surprises me daily how much she looks like Kristin."

She smiled then. "Me too. I wish she and Kristina could have known her."

"I wish you could have, love." He told her handing the gorgeous baby to her momma. He sat next to them on the edge of the bed.

"Was Kristina surprised to see you?" He asked his wife.

She laughed. "You should have seen her. She'd fallen asleep at her table, coloring. But I woke her up, because I didn't want her little ego to be bruised. I mean she did issue an ultimatum and she broods like her daddy, you know."

"I do not . . ." He began. She raised an eyebrow, staring him down and he gave in. How long was he going to deny it . . .though he wouldn't agree with her.

"We sang the boo-boo song--You Are My Sunshine--just in case maybe your jet's being used in the future or she . . .umm, puts her foot down again, I kissed her knee and tucked her in, we said her prayers, and I watched her until she drifted off. It didn't take long."

"And the tears?" She cuddled Kristina's younger sister in the crook of her neck and smiled as a single tear fell.

"Kristina's prayer. Please bless Uncle Ric and tell him that . . . Lamby and I love him a bunch." She laughed lightly. "It just caught me off guard. I thought I was past all that crying at the mention of his name stuff."

"Hey, you're doing perfect." He said kissing her, rubbing soothingly on the baby's tiny back A pleasant reminder for both of them of his brother. In the beginning it had been difficult for Alexis, Corinn being born so soon after Ric's death and the grief and guilt threatening to drown her. He'd done a lot of the immediate caring for her, he thanked the blessed mother that she really was the spitting image of Alexis' mother he didn't think she would've been able to take looking into Ric's eyes everytime she saw her . . .though he saw his wife in her everywhere and well, she did inherit one of Alexis' dimples.

"I need to feed her," she told him, the infant suckling on her mother's knuckle. "Will you hold us?" He scooted back on the big bed and leaned against the pillows cushioning the backboard and settled them between his legs. He untied the string at her neck and she rested against his chest situating the hungry baby at her breast. She sighed as the baby began to eat and he played in her hair as she relaxed. He loved to watch Alexis nurse Corinn, it was one of the most beautiful sights he'd ever scene and it brought such warmth to his heart. His former wife had never breast fed and though he wasn't around when Kris was little he knew Alexis had never nursed until Corinn was born. Somehow be believed it had really broken down the wall that had kept her away initially, that heavy burden of guilt.

_Corinn._ He smiled. Alexis had blessed him so much, by naming the baby after him. She and Ric had unintentionally given him a great gift. He felt all he had missed with Kristina had been returned to him in a way. Ella Corinn Lansing-Corinthos was a tiny angel and he loved being with Alexis and raising the two little girls, both of which he considered his own.

"Alexis?" He asked quietly, because he could see those heavy lids had finally fallen over Corinn's bright blue eyes.

"Hmmm?"

"Do you remember that night when Courtney was with AJ and you took me to bed?" He said close to her ear.

"I put you to bed, but yes. . .why?"

"When I woke up from the nightmare on that awful sleepless night, you were sitting beside the bed. Why did you stay?"

"I was watching you sleep." She replied glancing up at him, not completely answering just yet. "Sonny, do. ..do you remember the night you were protecting me from Stavros, well you didn't know it was Stavros . . .I wished so much I could tell you . . .but I promised Stefan and"

He shook his head slightly so that she wouldn't notice. "I remember Lex."

"When I woke up from my dream you were standing over me. Why were you there?"

"I was watching you sleep. You were trying so hard to pretend you weren't afraid . . . I hoped my presence might help fight off your demons . . .be-because I loved you so much."

"That's why I stayed with you, Sonny. I wanted so much to heal that little boy I saw still fighting for his mother. I wanted to stop the nightmares. I didn't, I know, because you had one that night, but I thought it might help to have someone who loved you close by." He kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger for a long moment.

"Thank you," he whispered to her, "These are the only sleepless nights I have anymore. These precious ones with you and our girls. Te amo, sweetheart…Te amo."

"It's all you've ever deserved, Sonny. I'm so glad you have that now. You deserve it all."


End file.
